Radio controlled cars are enjoyed by hobbyists recreationally and also competitively, and drifting is one of many variations of radio controlled car activities. Drifting is a technique to attack a corner by causing a tail (rear wheels) of the car to slide sideways to over-steer while maintaining control of the car. In such circumstances, the front wheels need to be pointing in the opposite direction to the turn, for example, the car is turning left, while the front wheels are pointing right or vice versa, and the car becomes vulnerable to spin out. An experienced user can sense this behavior and maintain control of the car. However, with a conventional radio controlled car, it is a very difficult maneuver for novices.
In order to maintain the control of the car and prevent a spin out, an approach chosen so far in the prior art has been to provide a steering control system utilizing an angular speed sensor. The steering control system having an angular speed sensor is widely used in remotely controlled vehicle to improve stability of the vehicle, especially for stabilizing yaw motion of a helicopter or the like. In the system, a yaw motion is detected by the angular speed sensor and a signal to a steering servo is generated according to the detected angular speed so as to make a corrective move.
The same technique has been employed for a radio controlled toy car. A steering control system including an angular speed sensor is installed between front wheels and rear wheels to detect the angular speed of the car. In this configuration, if rear wheels slide to left (the car is turning right and the angular speed sensor detects a right-hand turn), the system sends a signal to a steering servo to turn the front wheels to the left. This approach has been found also useful to maintain a steady cruising for a high power vehicle or on a slippery surface.